Good Mistakes

All ultimate players make mistakes on the field. There’s a huge range of things that you can do wrong, affecting the game, your team and yourself. Drops, throw-aways, not clearing, getting frustrated, forgetting to drink – these are all possible mistakes. There are many more and we’ll all experience these mistakes at some point.

A player looking to improve their skills and abilities should consider how good they are at dealing with mistakes. This is a skill that is as relevant to your performance on the field as many others. Your mental fitness needs to be just as tuned and functional as your physical fitness.

A few months ago I read a post on this site by Stephen Winters. The post is about stats in ultimate but the standout sentence for me was as follows:

But the difference between Thomas Kuhn and me is not that he is incapable of making simple mistakes. The difference is that he did not spend the next ten minutes of the game thinking about how much he sucked as a player because of one little mistake he had made.

I read that as a goal for anyone who is trying to improve how they deal with mistakes on the field. Thomas Kuhn plays for Canada’s worlds team. I am equally as impressed by (and envious of) the mental ability demonstrated by the example above as I am by the physical abilities and skills of a worlds-level players.

The key is to forget about the mistake in the short term and get on with your job on the field. Alternatively, use the mistake as fuel to fire up. If you’ve thrown the disc away then make sure that you do whatever you can to re-gain possession. Play some outstanding defence and generate a turnover.

That said, mistakes are good for you and shouldn’t be forgotten about completely. Mistakes help players identify shortcomings and build frameworks for improvement. It is easy to come away from a game feeling sucky about various situations that occurred. In the past I have felt terrible after a bad game however I am slowly learning to look at the game more objectively, identify the mistakes, and see them as further opportunities to improve.

In my post about Catching the D I wrote about a mistake I made on the field. At the time I didn’t deal with my mistake very well at all. I spent far too long in a selfish grumpy haze which was really unfair to my teammates. The mistake I’d made had resulted in a score, but it continued to affect our team whilst I struggled to deal with it, mentally.

However the mistake has been beneficial in the longer term. I learnt a lesson the hard way and this provides clarity and focus in similar situations on the field today.

Summary

It seems that there’s two key aims for those wishing to improve their skill of dealing with mistakes:

When you make a mistake during a game, let it go and keep playing.

After the games are done, do some self-analysis. Don’t be too critical but recognise that you have some challenges and areas to improve on.

Personally I am still working on both those aims. At my most recent tournament my captain was thoughtful enough to point out that I was improving in this regard. It isn’t easy, but each player has the ability to limit the damage of a mistake and turn each one around into a good mistake.

About Jason de Puit

Hi there! I am Jason and I am from Hobart, the capital of Tasmania way down south in Australia. My posts on Ultimate Rob will revolve around sharing some of the learnings I have experienced whilst improving myself as a player. I have experienced many aspects of the sport and hopefully the articles will prove useful for a wide range of players. Generally speaking I hope to appeal to fairly new players, but hopefully well established players may find something useful as well.

11 thoughts on “Good Mistakes”

Also, in my experience, it can be helpful to ensure that yourself and teammates know the difference between mistakes and bad habits. Mistakes are easier to fix since you know that you shouldn’t have thrown that pass, for example, but bad habits (aka, repeated mistakes) are a lot more difficult because the occur over and over again. In other words, I would rather have a player who accidentally forgets (makes a mistake) to catch the D than one who never catches the D.

@EMaxfieldJr Great point… I think a discerning factor is wether the player who makes the mistake realises what they did wrong, and then has the impetus to correct their actions.

There’s definitely a role for other members of the team to play in terms of watching their teammates and advising them of bad habits or areas of improvement. It can be a fine line to tread for a teammate as often players are giving themselves a hard time already, without needing further comments from others…

Couldn’t be written any better. Reading this post reminds me of my old room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this article to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!

Maxime - More Surprising Findings from the World of Biomechanical Analysis!

Hey Melissa!
I understand the most of the explications on this page, but I didn't understand what's wrong with the hands shaking? I mean, this is really how beginners throw I remarked that one coaching cue I constantly heard about is "use your wrist when you flick the disc" or something like that.
And... You mean that we need to use the flipping the pie... I don't really understand well how to transfer it to a throwing mechanics... I mean... By your explanation I refer myself to the flick throw mechanics Rowan McDonnell show in one of his video. He take the disc, do an abduction with his forearm (at this moment, the disc is up ready to throw like an archer who is ready to shoot, and the forearm face down in a ~45 degrees), so his wrist is in a pronation position (the pie is going down) and when he throw he place his wrist in a supination to proantion position. I tried to figure out the entire throwing mechanics.
He explain here how to do this at home (to practice the motion) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49u9-IznjRc

Imagining Ultimate As A Major Sport - Ultimate Rob - How To Choose an Ultimate Frisbee Team

[…] people tend to think of ultimate frisbee as a fairly casual, everyday sport. We play in parks and pick our teams for recreational leagues, and some play in fairly competitive clubs and organizations in college. […]

David Fawcett - Frisbee: Beyond Catch and Throw

rotation around the z axis

Phong - Forehand Mechanics That Aren’t Taught

Ho Johnny and Rob, thanks for the extreme detailed about the forehand mechanics. Could you discuss the science behind the angle between the disc and forearm please? Why does it have to be 160 degree?